1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to techniques for managing the assignment of staff resources, and more particularly to the use of a component business model architecture for organizing the staff assignment function.
2. Background Description
Companies are finding it more difficult to attract, retain and develop their human capital. Ninety percent (90%) of North American business and human resource (HR) executives recently surveyed say their companies are experiencing increased competition for talent. Eighty percent (80%) of companies consider talent management as their top management problem.
There is a potential shortfall of talent from a maturing workforce population, plus many organizations have a lack of understanding of key skills and capabilities that they possess. There are several business applications on the market which have been geared towards addressing the issue of understanding and tracking staff skills with the object of assignment in mind. However, all of these are structured around processes, and therefore deteriorate over time as the supporting processes are adapted in an ad hoc fashion to changing business conditions. Furthermore, the inflexibility and monolithic character of process oriented approaches to staffing are particularly ill-suited to the support of new working practices, increasing employee mobility between companies, and contractual arrangements for working for multiple companies. What is needed is an approach which overcomes the foregoing limitations of process based staffing structures.